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Researchers at the Centre for Bioelectric Interfaces and the Centre for Cognition & Decision Making of the Higher School of Economics utilized electroencephalogram (EEG) and the event-related potential (ERP) technique to study neural activity during simultaneous interpretation of continuous prose. Using event-related potentials as an index of depth of attention to the sounding fragment, the researchers assessed the competition between memory and auditory perception during simultaneous interpretation. The results of the study were published in the journal PLoS ONE.

HSE University is pleased to announce an international competition for experimental research laboratories in such breakthrough fields of contemporary physics as Quantum Technologies and Novel Functional Materials. The winners will have a chance to head and develop new research laboratories based out of the HSE Faculty of Physics.

We estimate the influence of classmates’ ability characteristics on student achievement in exogenously formed student groups. The study uses administrative data on undergraduate students at a large selective university in Russia. The presence of high-ability classmates has a positive effect on individual academic performance, and students at the top of the ability distribution derive the greatest benefit from their presence. An increase in the proportion of less able students has an insignificant or negative influence on individual grades.

The article is devoted to a new type of educational programs that are formed at the intersection of higher and secondary education. Education as an institute is seen as an instrument of social stratification of society. The authors analyze the major developments of education as an institute, for instance differentiation between of academic and vocational educational programs and the creation of programs of production a “Homo habilis” — a skilled performer. Changes in the vocational education system are considered in the light of the introduction of the new educational standards FSES 2011 (Federal State Educational Standards).

The authors discuss models presented in papers which are concerned with peer-effects in higher education, and their limitations. Open questions of educational policy and the challenges that they issue for researchers are formulated.

The paper explores individual project assignments in ESP (English for Specific Purposes) at the Higher School of Economics in St. Petersburg, Russia, including their general framework, specific features, and stages of preparation. It also examines linguistic skills and competences that project work aims to develop. The main focus is on minimizing possible pitfalls that teachers and students are likely to face while working on the projects. Project assessment and evaluation are also addressed in the paper.

We study which Big Five personality traits are associated with academic performance among a sample of Russian university students using results from the Unified State Examination (for university admissions) and their current grade point averages as measures of academic performance. We find that Introversion, Agreeableness, Neuroticism, and Openness to experience have observable ties to academic performance. Those results partially confirm existing international studies, but our findings are notable for the relative unimportance of conscientiousness for success in our Russian sample. We suggest that cross-cultural differences in educational environment may explain why this trait seems less obviously important in the analysis.

The introduction of the Unified State Exam (USE) has simplified the process of university entry by decreasing transaction costs associated with the application process. The new system allows applicants to apply to several higher education institutions at the same time. However, many students do not take advantage of this opportunity and apply only to a single university. In this study we analyze the factors that influence application strategies, whether to apply to only one institution or to apply to several. We argue that higher USE scores predict a higher probability of multiple applications. Additionally, graduating from a high school that offers advanced training in a particular discipline positively influences this probability. The variables of family income and social capital, a parent’s level of education, and their age, as well as attending additional programs of pre-entry training are statistically insignificant.

How are professors paid? Can the "best and brightest" be attracted to the academic profession? With universities facing international competition, which countries compensate their academics best, and which ones lag behind? Paying the Professoriate examines these questions and provides key insights and recommendations into the current state of the academic profession worldwide.
Paying the Professoriate is the first comparative analysis of global faculty salaries, remuneration, and terms of employment. Offering an in-depth international comparison of academic salaries in twenty-eight countries across public, private, research, and non-research universities, chapter authors shed light on the conditions and expectations that shape the modern academic profession. The top researchers on the academic profession worldwide analyze common themes, trends, and the impact of these matters on academic quality and research productivity. In a world where higher education capacity is a key driver of national innovation and prosperity, and nations seek to fast-track their economic growth through expansion of higher education systems, policy makers and administrators increasingly seek answers about what actions they should be taking. Paying the Professoriate provides a much needed resource, illuminating the key issues and offering recommendations

Meta-analytic research in psychology of academic performance proved that Big Five Conscientiousness and Openness to Experience predict scholastic achievements of university students (O’Connor, Paunonen, 2007; Poropat, 2009). But we claim that psychological predictiors of academic success depend on educational environment and can be culture-related. We examined 176 2nd and 3rd year economy and computer science university students in Russia with the Big Five – Ipsative version test (Shmelyov, 2010) and discovered that GPA and USE (United State Examination in Russia) scores are significantly correlated with Agreeableness (r = 0.15; p < 0.01 for GPA and r = 0.22 p < 0.01 for USE math) and Neuroticism (r = 0.2, p < 0.01 for GPA and r = -0,17; p < 0,01 for USE math). We suppose that the difference between our result and results provided by the meta-analyses mentioned above can be explained by the differences in educational environment in Russia and other countries. We assume that big number of classes and relatively small amount of individual and analytical assignments create the environment where Agreeableness and Neuroticism are important for the academic success.

This paper, first, looks into what cultural diversity in higher education is. Secondly, it offers speculations on different attitudes of educators and students to multiculturalism because of certain myths that are also described and dispelled. Thirdly, the author dwells on types of programs that may help maintain cultural diversity in universities. Finally, the author focuses on the contribution of the National Research University “Higher School of Economics” (HSE) to promoting multiculturalism, mostly on arranging international online forums to bring two and more cultures together. When analyzing the forum content, communication strategies used by the students were determined and described.

This book contains the proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Computer Supported Education (CSEDU 2012) which was organized and sponsored by the Institute for Systems and Technologies of Information, Control and Communication (INSTICC) and technically co-sponsored by SPEE (Portuguese Society for Engineering Education), IGIP (International Society for Engineering Education), ROLE (Responsive Open Learning Environments) and IFIP TC3 (International Federation for Information Processing - Technical Committee 3 - ICT and Education).

CSEDU has become an annual meeting place for presenting and discussing learning paradigms, best practices and case studies that concern innovative computer-supported learning strategies, institutional policies on technology-enhanced learning including learning from distance, supported by technology. The Web is currently a preferred medium for distance learning and the learning practice in this context is usually referred to as e-learning or technology-enhanced learning. CSEDU 2012 is expected to give an overview of the state of the art in technology-enhanced learning and to also outline upcoming trends and promote discussions about the education potential of new learning technologies in the academic and corporate world.

This conference brings together researchers and practitioners interested in methodologies and applications related to the education field. It has five main topic areas, covering different aspects of Computer Supported Education, including "Information Technologies Supporting Learning", "Learning/Teaching Methodologies and Assessment", "Social Context and Learning Environments", "Domain Applications and Case Studies" and "Ubiquitous Learning". We believe the proceedings, demonstrate new and innovative solutions, and highlight technical problems in each field that are challenging and worthwhile.

CSEDU 2012 received 243 paper submissions from 58 countries in all continents. A double-blind review process was enforced, with the help of the 297 experts who are members of the conference program committee, all of them internationally recognized in one of the main conference topic areas. Only 29 papers were selected to be published and presented as full papers, i.e. completed work (10 pages in proceedings / 30' oral presentations). 73 papers, describing work-in-progress, were selected as short papers for 20' oral presentation. Furthermore 37 papers were presented as posters. The full-paper acceptance ratio was thus 12%, and the total oral paper acceptance ratio was less than 42%. These ratios denote a high level of quality, which we intend to maintain and reinforce in the next edition of this conference.

The high quality of the CSEDU 2012 programme is enhanced by three keynote lectures, delivered by distinguished guests who are renowned experts in their fields, including (alphabetically): Joseph Trimmer (Ball State University, United States), David Kaufman (Simon Fraser University, Canada) and Hugh Davis (University of Southampton, United Kingdom).

For the fourth edition of the conference we extended and ensured appropriate indexing of the proceedings of CSEDU including DBLP, INSPEC, EI and Thomson Reuters Conference Proceedings Citation Index. Besides the proceedings edited by SciTePress, a short list of papers presented at the conference will be selected for publication of extended and revised versions in the Journal of Education and Information Technologies. Furthermore, all presented papers will soon be available at the SciTePress digital library.

The conference is complemented with two special sessions, focusing on specialized aspects of computer supported education; namely, a Special Session on Enhancing Student Engagement in e-Learning (ESEeL 2012) and a Special Session on Serious Games on Computer Science Learning (SGoCSL 2012).

Building an interesting and successful program for the conference required the dedicated effort of many people. Firstly, we must thank the authors, whose research and development efforts are recorded here. Secondly, we thank the members of the program committee and additional reviewers for their diligence and expert reviewing. We also wish to include here a word of appreciation for the excellent organization provided by the conference secretariat, from INSTICC, who have smoothly and efficiently prepared the most appropriate environment for a productive meeting and scientific networking. Last but not least, we thank the invited speakers for their invaluable contribution and for taking the time to synthesize and deliver their talks.

This paper examines the impact of family income on the results of the Unified State Examination (the
USE) and university choice in Russia. We argue that, even under the USE, which was introduced
instead of high school exit exams and university-specific entrance exams, entrants from wealthy
households still have an advantage in terms of access to higher education, since income positively
affects USE scores through the channel of a higher level of investment in pre-entry coaching.
Moreover, richer households make more effective decisions about university. We have found positive
and significant relationships between the level of income and USE results for high school graduates,
with an equal achievement before coaching. We subsequently propose that students from the most
affluent households do invest more in additional types of preparation (pre-entry courses and individual
lessons with tutors), and those extra classes provide a higher return for children from this particular
income group. Finally, we show that holding the result of the USE equal, students with good and fair
marks from wealthy families are admitted to universities with higher average USE score than those
from poorer families. As a result, we can observe that income status is a factor that significantly
influences enrollment to university.

Exposure to prenatal androgens affects both future behavior and life choices. However, there is still relatively limited evidence on its effects on academic performance. Moreover, the predicted effect of exposure to prenatal testosterone (T) - which is inversely correlated with the relative length of the second to fourth finger lengths (2D:4D) - would seem to have ambiguous effects on academic achievement since traits like confidence, aggressiveness, or risk-taking are not uniformly positive for success in school. We provide the first evidence of a non-linear relationship between 2D:4D and academic achievement using samples from Moscow and Manila. We find that there is a quadratic relationship between high T exposure and markers of achievement such as grades or test scores and that the optimum digit ratio for women in our sample is lower (indicating higher prenatal T) than the average. The results for men are generally insignificant for Moscow but significant for Manila showing similar non-linear effects. Our work is thus unusual in that it draws from a large sample of nearly a thousand university students in Moscow and over a hundred from Manila for whom we also have extensive information on high school test scores, family background and other potential correlates of achievement. Our work is also the first to have a large cross country comparison that includes two groups with very different ethnic compositions.

Institutions affect investment decisions, including investments in human capital. Hence institutions are relevant for the allocation of talent. Good market-supporting institutions attract talent to productive value-creating activities, whereas poor ones raise the appeal of rent-seeking. We propose a theoretical model that predicts that more talented individuals are particularly sensitive in their career choices to the quality of institutions, and test these predictions on a sample of around 95 countries of the world. We find a strong positive association between the quality of institutions and graduation of college and university students in science, and an even stronger negative correlation with graduation in law. Our findings are robust to various specifications of empirical models, including smaller samples of former colonies and transition countries. The quality of human capital makes the distinction between educational choices under strong and weak institutions particularly sharp. We show that the allocation of talent is an important link between institutions and growth.